1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a learning support method and a learning support program in so-called xe2x80x9ce-Learningxe2x80x9d system.
2. Prior Art
In late years the learning support system with a network and the World Wide Web technology has been developed. A learner (a student) is able to attend a lecture opened on the Web through a Web browser. Accordingly, a learner can study in a desired time at a desired place without limitations of time and place.
However, unlike a classroom education, in which a plurality of learners gather on a classroom to attend a lecture, each learner has to study individually in the learning support system.
In the classroom education, an instructor can realize intelligibility and degree of concentrations of the learners through their facial expressions, behavior and an atmosphere of the classroom. Therefore, the instructor can improve the intelligibility by changing a way of explanation and so on.
On the other hand, a service offerer of a conventional learning support system grasps the intelligibility of the learners indirectly through test results and questions from the learners. However, a frequency of test is limited. Further it is difficult to know intelligibility of each learner based on contents of the questions because a question is a voluntary action of a learner.
Since the learner who could not understand the contents of the lecture does not usually realize what point he or she could not understand, he or she cannot construct a question by analyzing an unknown portion. For example, a questioner who asks xe2x80x9cwhat is corresponding to the session layer?xe2x80x9d after the description xe2x80x9cIP of TCP/IP corresponds to a network layer of OSI seven-layer model and TCP corresponds to a transport layer thereofxe2x80x9d understands the contents of the description. On the contrary, a learner who does not know the OSI seven-layer model cannot ask questions about the description.
Further, in a classroom education, a learner does not exit from a classroom without saying a word even if he or she could not understand the contents of the lecture because he or she is attending the lecture with other learners in the classroom. However, in e-learning, a learner stops attending a lecture when he or she could not understand the contents of the lecture with or without frustration because he or she is not restrained in a classroom.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an improved learning support method, which is capable of supporting a learner to learn and not to stop attending a lecture when a learner cannot understand the contents of the lecture.
For the above object, according to the present invention, there is provided a learning support method with a server computer that holds a plurality of learning material units and keyword information including keywords linked with the learning material units in a memory portion, the server computer being able to connect with a client computer of a learner. The method includes a keyword set specifying step for specifying keywords linked with the current learning material unit that is attended by the learner as a first keyword set and for specifying keywords linked with one of the learning material units that have already been attended by the learner as a second keyword set when the server computer informed from the client computer that a learner cannot understand the current learning material unit, a selectable keyword set extracting step for extracting keywords that are common between the first and second keyword sets as a selectable keyword set, and a keyword list transmitting step for transmitting a list of keywords within the selectable keyword set to the client computer.
With this method, when a learner who studies a learning material unit through a client computer that transmits the learning material and the learner could not understand the contents of the learning material, the learner receives the list of the keywords included in the current learning material unit. The learner can choose one keyword to require further information to the server computer.
When the client computer informs the server of the keyword chosen by the learner from among the keywords in the selectable keyword set, the server computer may specify the learning material unit that corresponds to the keyword chosen by the learner based on the keyword information to send the specified learning material unit to the client computer.
The second keyword set may include keywords that link with a latest learning material unit that has been recently attended and that was not understood by the learner. In such a case, the learning support method may further include a third keyword set specifying step for specifying keywords that link with a finished learning material unit other than the latest learning material unit from among those attended and not understood by the learner as a third keyword set when the server computer is informed from the client computer that a keyword required by the learner was not included in the selectable keyword set, a second selectable keyword set extracting step for extracting keywords that are common between the first and third keyword sets and not included in the selectable keyword set as a second selectable keyword set, and a second keyword list transmitting step for transmitting a list of keywords within the second selectable keyword set to the client computer.
It is desirable that the learning support method further includes a learning material unit specifying step for specifying the learning material unit that corresponds to the keyword chosen by the learner based on the keyword information when the server computer is informed by the client computer of the keyword chosen by the learner from among the keywords in the second selectable keyword set, and a learning material unit sending step for sending the specified learning material unit to the client computer.
Further, glossary information that includes explanations of the keywords may be installed in the memory portion. In such a case, the explanation information that corresponds to the keyword chosen by the learner based on the glossary information may be transmitted to the client computer when there was not a learning material unit corresponding to the keyword chosen by the learner.
The above described method is also available as a computer program executed on the server computer or the system consisting of the server computer and the program thereof.